And Beats High Mountain Down
by BookkeeperThe
Summary: Sam is concussed and hallucinating; Dean is crippled and drugged to the gills. It is, in short, about the worst possible moment for sudden, unexpected time travel. [Teenchesters/season seven]
1. The People We Were

**Notes: set early season seven (at Rufus' cabin)/sometime around the flashbacks in After School Special. This is a study in perspectives as much as anything. The first chapter will be from older Dean and Sam's POVs, the second from their younger counterparts', and the last (longer) chapter and epilogue from John and Bobby's. **

**Title comes from one of Gollum's riddles in the Hobbit. The answer was Time. **

**.**

Dean awoke to the sound of footsteps behind him. Sam, he quickly deduced from their light tread. Sam . . . walking really weirdly, light-footed but not his soundless Hunter's prowl. Huh. Probably the kid was trying to strike some balance between letting him sleep and not startling him if he was awake. It was the sort of ridiculously over-thought thing he would do.

"Hey, Sammy, how about some breakfast?"

The footsteps stopped, and there was a sharp intake of breath. Dean bit back a sigh. Looked like he was jumpy today.

. . . or maybe a little more than jumpy. Sam's breathing had picked up to a frankly alarming rate, and Dean struggled to haul himself upright so he could see over the back of the sofa.

"Sam –" He began, carefully calm, ready to talk his brother out of whatever Hell-vision he was caught in this time – and stopped. Because sure enough, there was Sam, white-faced and wide-eyed . . . and about fourteen. "Son of a bitch!" Dean exclaimed, the composure which was completely artificial to begin with evaporating in an instant. "What the hell?"

"How am I supposed to know?" said the inexplicably shrunken Sam. He was obviously trying to sound brave, but his voice wavered in a way anyone would have noticed, let alone Dean. His hand shook as he gripped his butterfly knife with white knuckles. "You're the one who kidnapped me."

_Crap._

"I didn't kidnap you," said Dean, in the forcibly level voice he had had way too much practice with recently. "Look, just – put the knife down, will you?"

Sam hesitated, and Dean groaned in exasperation.

"I'm a gimp, dude. What am I going to do to you?"

Sam frowned suspiciously. He edged around the couch, remaining far out of reach, and examined Dean with critical eyes, taking in the huge cast which had him immobilized. He shut the knife, but kept it in his hand.

"Who are you?" he questioned, sounding a bit less panicked.

"I know this is going to be hard to believe . . ." Even by their standards. ". . . but I'm your brother."

"My brother's eighteen," said Sam, in his 'do you think I'm an idiot' tone. It was really, really weird to hear an octave higher than Dean was used to.

"And mine's twenty-nine," Dean retorted. "Looks like there's been a mix-up. Come on, man, I don't look _that_ different."

Sam eyed him suspiciously, and Dean held his breath. He _really_ hoped Sam didn't ask for proof – he didn't have anything to show the kid, no scars on his resurrected body, no information which couldn't be gleaned by any mind-reading fugly worth its salt, hell, not even the freaking amulet. But as much as it felt like lifetimes ago, he hadn't changed that much physically from when he was eighteen; mostly just put on muscle and hardened around the edges.

Dean tried to look as young as possible. It must have worked, because Sam's mouth dropped open.

"_Dean?_"

Dean looked at his little brother – his _little_ brother, two feet shorter than him with wide hazel eyes filled with shock and wonder – and gave a genuine grin for the first time in what felt like forever.

"Hey, Sammy."

.

Sam awoke to the very familiar sound of a shotgun barrel slamming into place. The voice which accompanied it was almost as familiar.

"Hands where I can see them and don't try anything."

_Crap._ He was still asleep. Either that or his hallucinations had gotten creative. Very slowly, he sat up and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, opening his eyes to meet his father's steely gaze.

"You've got five seconds to tell me where my son is before I shoot you full of buckshot."

Sam frowned. That wasn't right. Oh, he was used to his father's voice telling him that he wasn't his son, that he was demon spawn, a freak, a disappointment – but this was different. There was fear behind the hatred, and the boy standing behind him, while also not an uncommon fixture in Lucifer's highly creative torments, was much younger than he usually appeared. This Dean couldn't be more than eighteen, and his terror was not nearly as well masked as his father's.

"Don't look at me," said Lucifer from where he was suddenly perched on the grimy metal table. "It's not one of mine. Unless, of course, it's all one of mine. So either you're still in the Cage, or your life is literally weirder than Hell. Think about that one."

"Five," John growled, and Sam's attention snapped back to him. Hallucination or no hallucination, he would rather not get shot. Again.

"Look, I have no idea what's going on."

"You really expect me to believe that?" John snorted. "Four."

"Honestly, I just woke up here," Sam protested, panic beginning to flutter in his stomach. Chances were slim that he'd be able to disarm John without the gun going off, and even if he could, he had no doubt that Dean had a loaded piece within reach of his restlessly twitching fingers.

"Lying ain't gonna get you anything but an early grave," John told him coldly, shifting his grip on the weapon. Sam flinched. "Three."

"I don't know where your son is!" That one _was_ kind of a lie. Sam didn't _know_, but he did suspect. Still, he knew his father, and he knew that the time travel explanation, however true it was, wouldn't fly.

"He never did listen to you," commented Lucifer.

"Two."

"No, listen, I'm –"

"One."

"_Dad, don't!_"

The desperate plea slipped unbidden from Sam's mouth, and amazingly, it worked. John faltered, his face freezing, and Dean's eyes widened in an almost comical expression of shock.

"It's me," said Sam quickly. "I'm Sam. From about . . ." He did a quick calculation. "Fifteen years in the future. I don't know how, and I don't why, but it's me."

His father began to look skeptical again, and Sam glanced sideways at the clock to find the date, praying that his idea would work.

"Look, I can prove it."

Still keeping his movements as slow and nonthreatening as he could manage, he reached over with his right hand to pull up his sleeve, revealing a thin white scar on his shoulder. Dean gave a sharp intake of breath.

"It was a couple weeks ago, right?" Sam prompted, straining for the details, shifting through hundreds of false memories in search of the real one. "Sparring accident. I ducked when I should have weaved, fell on that nail. Ten stitches." He forced his lips into a weak smile. "You let me have a shot of whiskey."

"And you still cried like an infant," said Lucifer. "We've really done wonders for your pain tolerance, haven't we, Sam?"

Sam ignored him, watching his father. John was staring at him, the gun wavering. Sam clamped down on the instinct to leap forward and wrench it from his hands, instead sitting very, very still and waiting for a response.

When it came, it wasn't from John.

"Sammy?"

Sam turned to the boy he had once thought was invincible, the boy who now looked impossibly small and young with his father's jacket on his shoulders and astonishment on his face.

"Hey, Dean."

.

The first thing Dean did was call Bobby.

Well, okay, the _first_ thing he did was get mini-Sam to bring him some water (little bastard wouldn't give him beer) so he could down three different prescription painkillers. His leg hurt like a bitch.

But the second thing he did was call Bobby.

"_What?"_ came Bobby's irritated greeting.

"Either someone slipped acid into my happy pills or we've got a problem," said Dean, with equal preamble. Sam shot him a disapproving look from where he was examining the labels on the pill bottles. That was one thing that hadn't changed at all in fifteen years.

"_What sorta problem?" _

"Sam's fourteen."

There was a long silence, and then Bobby's voice again, careful instead of annoyed.

"_Well, it ain't exactly unheard of, with this sorta thing. Have ya tried showin' him a mirror?_"

The painkillers were already beginning to kick in, and took Dean a moment to work out what he meant. It took him another moment of idle pondering of whether regression would be better or worse than Hell-visions before he forced his drug-hazed mind back on track and replied.

"No, he's really fourteen. Physically, mentally . . . everything-elsely. Like a de-aging spell or something."

Another silence, this one even longer.

"_. . . dammit,"_ Bobby concluded finally. _"I'll be there in half an hour. Keep the kid outta trouble. Better yet, let him keep you outta trouble."_

He hung up before Dean could think of a suitable retort.

"You . . . stay out of trouble," he told the phone, which blinked back at him, unimpressed.

"It says 'call ended,'" mini-Sam informed him.

"I know that," Dean snapped, and instantly regretted it when the kid jumped and took a step backwards, wariness in every line of his expression and posture. It was a look he hated to admit he'd seen in Sam more than once over the past few years, but it never been like that with this Sammy. This Sammy had always looked at Dean with absolute trust, saving the fear and suspicion for . . . their father.

Dean tempered his tone, doing his best to insert affectionate teasing around the sudden tightness in his throat.

"I can read, bitch."

"Just wasn't sure how many of these 'happy pills' you had taken," Sam replied, with a cautious touch of the sass which Dean had never thought he'd miss until it was buried beneath guilt and pain. Sam dropped his head and peered at Dean through his bangs, his lips curling into a tentative smile. "Jerk."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean griped, but he was smiling as well, more easily than he had in lifetimes.

.

"If you're from the future, where's the other Sam?" Dean demanded.

"Dunno," said Sam with a shrug. "Maybe we got switched. He should be fine, though. You're there."

Dean looked a little startled by the statement, as if the idea of his older self hadn't even occurred to him. Bobby would be there, too, but that would bring up awkward questions about where John was in the future, so Sam didn't mention it, instead pulling the covers back and standing.

It was, Sam had to admit, a little gratifying to see the surprise on John and Dean's faces when he stood and their eyes followed him up . . . and up . . . and up.

"You'll have to make do with my clothes," was all John said, while Dean gaped.

"Yes, sir," Sam agreed, the response falling automatically from his lips. John relaxed marginally, and Sam realized, with an internal wince, that the (still) older man had been testing the waters, trying to see what sort of reactions he could expect from this taller, harder version of his stubborn youngest son.

"Really, Sam?" Lucifer complained. "Falling in line like a good little soldier? We both know that isn't you."

Sam turned away from his father and brother, pretending to survey the room as he dug his thumb into his wound. (Trying to ignore the thought that if that _had_ been him, way back now, he might not have fucked everything up so badly.) In his peripheral vision, Lucifer flickered and disappeared.

"What happened to your hand?" Dean asked sharply. Sam nearly laughed (nearly cried), because he was ten years older and a foot taller than the boy in the leather jacket but there had been a time when Dean couldn't see him as anything but his little brother.

"Nothing, it's fine," he replied, facing them again and adjusting the bandage. "Fell on some glass." He smiled, and this time it was less forced. "You patched me up."

"'Course I did," said Dean, but John cut off whatever else he had been about to add.

"You and Dean are still hunting."

It wasn't quite a question, but Sam nodded anyway. He wasn't entirely sure how much he should reveal about the future, but he figured that if he was going to do irreparable damage to the fabric of time or something it already would have happened.

A half-formed idea tinged with something like hope wormed its way into the back of his mind. _Maybe, just maybe . . . _later. He'd have to think about it more.

"Yes, sir. Though, um, not right now. Then." He frowned. Time travel made tenses difficult. "We had kind of a rough hunt; we've been laid up for a couple weeks."

"What were you hunting?"

"Nothing that would do something like this." He was pretty sure about that. The Leviathans were vicious and deadly, but they didn't engage in the same infuriating brand of mischief as, say, angels.

John's brows lowered at his cryptic answer, but he didn't question him further. Not now, anyway – Sam was certain he was filing the information away for later use.

"Can't think of anything like that on our end, either," he said. "We'll have to do some research. In the meantime, I think we could all use some breakfast, Dean."

Dean looked unhappy, but the command was clear behind the statement, and Dean never disobeyed their father's orders. _He was always the good son _whispered through Sam's ears, and he couldn't tell whether the thought was his own.

He bit down on his tongue, hard. Today was not going to be a good day.

The door snapping shut jerked him back to reality, and he found John watching him closely. He kept himself from swallowing and did his best to look composed, consciously straightening his shoulders and relaxing his jaw.

Without a word, John pulled out a flask. Left pocket. That meant holy water and not whiskey, Sam recalled. He accepted it in silence, took a swallow, handed it back. He knew what came next, but he couldn't stop himself from tensing up when the silver knife came out. Still, he held out his arm and allowed John to administer a shallow slice, though every fiber of his being was screaming at him to _run fight hide beg._

"So," said John, putting the knife away and stepping around him to take a beer from the fridge. "The future, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

"The yellow-eyed demon," said John abruptly. "Do we kill it?"

". . . yeah," said Sam, thrown for a moment, though he shouldn't have been. He had forgotten how single-minded his father could be. "We kill it." He could barely remember a time when he had thought that would be the end of it. (But he would have to, if he was going to put his idea into motion. What had that hunter's name been? Something beginning with an 'E' . . .)

"Good," John said, and set his beer down beside the books which still lay on the table from their last hunt. "Get dressed. Let's get to work figuring this out."

They had both settled (somewhat uneasily) into the hard plastic chairs on either side of the table when Lucifer's voice suddenly spoke in Sam's ear.

"Ah, yes," Lucifer said, and Sam just managed not to jump. "Azazel. What a presumptuous cockroach. He really thought that his petty little schemes were the epitome of ambition. Be we know better, don't we, Sammy? You were meant for _so much more _than playing king for a swarm of bottom feeders."

Sam clenched his jaw and remained silent. He could feel Lucifer shift position, and when the archangel spoke again his tone was light, falsely contemplative.

"Funny how he called it a demon."

Sam's eyes flickered involuntarily to his father, who was focused on the book in front of him, his eyebrows drawn together in a familiar frown.

"You didn't think that he knew that yet, did you?" Lucifer continued. "Makes you wonder what else he knew.

"This is about the time the cracks started to show, isn't it? Did you really think that was _all_ you and your teenage angst? Of course, I suppose it was all you, in a way," Lucifer mused. "Just less your teenage angst and more your father finally seeing just how little you belonged with him."

Another shift, and this time Sam _did_ jump at the sudden chill of cold breath on the back of his neck.

"Do you think he knew about _us_?"

Sam clenched his jaw, nearly biting through his tongue as he wished that John were less observant. As it was, he couldn't risk aggravating the wound in his hand, not when John has already noticed his odd behavior and was frowning at him across the table.

"You alright, Sam?" There was suspicion and wariness in his voice, but it was accompanied by undertones of concern which Sam had never appreciated when he was younger.

"Fine," he bit out, and tried to force his mind back to the task at hand.

"Liar, liar," Lucifer murmured. Sam could feel the twin prongs of his tongue slide along either side of his ear, and he wasn't sure whether it was that or the flames suddenly licking up his legs which broke his tenuous grip on reality.


	2. The People We Became

Something was wrong with Sammy.

Something _besides_ him suddenly being a freaking giant from the goddamn future, like that wasn't weird enough on its own.

He was trying to hide it, but Dean could tell. Dean could always tell, no matter how freakishly huge his little brother had gotten. It was there in his posture, his voice, his eyes. Something was really, really wrong with Sammy.

And Dad had sent Dean on a freaking breakfast run. It made him want to shoot something. Unfortunately, there was nothing around but civilians, so he settled for cutting a couple people in line, skipping his usual flirtation with the cute cashier, and booking it back to the motel.

He opened the door to the sight of Sam – enormous, oldish, time traveler Sam – cowering in the far corner like a frightened animal.

Breakfast hit the ground with a thump.

"What the hell?"

"Damned if I know," Dad replied lowly, moving sideways to place a restraining hand on his shoulder, gaze not leaving Sam – whose eyes never once flickered their way, terror-blown pupils tracking something else entirely. "He checked out not long after you left, freaked when I tried to touch him." He rubbed the side of his face, and Dean noticed a red mark that was sure to blossom into a spectacular bruise. "Kid packs a hell of a wallop."

"What is it, like a seizure or something?" Dean questioned, and tried to move forward.

Dad's grip tightened on his shoulder, holding him back.

"He ain't the Sam you know, Dean," Dad warned him.

"Like hell he ain't," Dean snapped back. He didn't like to argue with Dad, but that was _Sammy_ – a whole lot more of him than he was used to, but Sammy all the same – and Dean would never leave his little brother on his own when he was hurting. Not for anything. "Sammy," he said, directing it at his brother and ignoring his father's warning growl.

It worked – sort of. Sam's eyes fixed on him, but they were still hazy, uncomprehending.

"It's me," Dean continued, fighting to keep his voice steady. "It's Dean. C'mon, Sammy, you know me."

Slowly, slowly, Sam's eyes began to clear.

"D-Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean answered, relief flooding him. "Yeah, it's me. I'm right here." He shook off his father's hand and stepped forward, within Sam's reach. Behind him, he sensed rather than saw Dad tense, ready to leap forward should this larger, obviously unbalanced Sam make any hostile move. "I'm right here," Dean repeated.

Sam gave a little shake of his head, and something seemed to snap back into place. Mortification and shame quickly replaced fear and confusion.

"Sorry," he muttered, straightening up and running a hand over his face. "I'm sorry, I – " His gaze landed on the mark he had left on Dad's face, and he grimaced. "God. I am so sorry."

"Why don't you stop apologizing and tell us what the hell that was," Dad said, and it wasn't a suggestion.

"That – " Sam's eyes darted between the two of them. He swallowed hard, and his entire manner shifted between one breath and the next. He was suddenly standing straight, shoulders relaxed, lines of stress and pain smoothed from his face. "Nothing. That was nothing," he said firmly. "Like I said, we had kind of a rough hunt. Had a run-in with a crowbar," he said, gesturing towards his head. "Guess it knocked a few screws loose." He smiled, a bit sheepishly.

"Never seen that sort of reaction to head trauma," said Dad flatly.

"Yeah, well." Sam shrugged. "Repeated head trauma. Not exactly the first time I've been knocked around. Bruised something. Doctors say it should go away on its own. I mean, it's only happened a couple times, and those were right after. Probably just the shock of the time travel."

He was lying. He was better at it than the Sammy Dean was used to – alarmingly so, actually – but he was definitely lying.

Dad couldn't see it, or at least was pretending not to. The oldest Winchester gave a grunt and turned back to the table without another word. Dean opened his mouth to protest – but Sam caught his eye with an all-too-familiar expression.

_Please don't tell him. __**Please.**_

He closed his mouth with a clack. Dammit, he would never get done covering for the kid.

.

"I'm going to go get changed."

Dean – clearly Dean, complete with unsafe self-medication practices, for all that Sam's brain revolted against the idea – made an affirmative noise in response. He grabbed the remote as Sam moved away, turning on a – Sam glanced back over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't mistaken. Yeah, it was a Spanish soap opera. Dean really was high off his ass.

After pausing a moment to roll his eyes, Sam quickly and quietly returned to the room he had woken up in, shut the door, and set to work.

The room was neat, with one window that didn't open and one door which lead out to the main area of the . . . the cabin, he supposed, judging by the rough, natural look of the place and woods outside the window. There was a gun on the bedside table. Sam had looked at it before, long enough to confirm that it was unloaded and the bullets weren't anywhere easily accessible. Now he picked it up again, examining it in light of new information. This was his room. This was his gun.

His hands did not shake, though his stomach twisted unpleasantly. He wished he was surprised. But he had hoped . . . he had thought, maybe . . . .

He put the gun back with a slightly louder _clang_ than he had intended. Stupid, stupid.

There were two other things on the small table, a wallet and some sort of futuristic electronic device. Well, he was in the future, he supposed, and then had to stop for moment to attempt to wrap his head around that. He quickly gave up and turned his attention back to the device.

He tried pressing the green button first. The screen lit up rewardingly, but then presented a new conundrum.

SCREEN LOCKED

PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD

A more familiar set of controls – a number pad – appeared on the screen beneath the request, and with a little trial and error Sam discovered that it was a touch-screen, about fifty times as reactive as the ones they had at some more high-tech libraries. Unfortunately, as cool as it was, it wasn't all that useful. He tried all the four digit codes he could think of (his birthday, Dean's, some pairs of numbers from his favorite football and soccer players' jerseys) but none of them worked. He finally gave it up as a lost cause and turned to the more familiar item.

The wallet contained twenty-six dollars and fifty-two cents, a stack of fake credit cards and IDs, and three folded photographs. Sam ignored the money and the standard hunter's ware and smoothed out the pictures.

One, he recognized. It was a picture of their parents – his only connection to two people he'd never seen and Dean never talked about, Mom alive and smiling, Dad young and happy – standing in front of their old house. It was older than the version he kept tucked away in one of the books he knew Dean would never read, yellowed edges and worn crease lines, and he folded it carefully before replacing it in the wallet.

Another, he couldn't place at all. It was a girl he'd never seen before, adult but very young, grinning at the camera, her curly blonde hair a halo around her head. This picture, too, was carefully worn, several years old at least. But she was very beautiful, and Sam felt a small thrill of hope – maybe he wouldn't mind hunting so much if it meant having this girl smile at him like that.

He put it back in the wallet.

The last picture, he could easily guess. It was Dean, older than Sam was used to but younger than the man in the other room, wearing Dad's jacket and leaning against the Impala, head thrown back as he laughed. On the other side of the hood was . . . Sam, he supposed. He'd gotten _tall_. He wasn't laughing like Dean, but he was smiling, wide and warm with his eyes on his brother.

A knock on the door made him jump, and the picture slipped from his fingers.

"Sam?" questioned a familiar voice. "You in there?"

Sam scrambled over and yanked the door open.

"Uncle Bobby!"

He threw himself at the older man's middle, and after a startled 'oof' Bobby's arms came up to hug him back.

"Alright, kid?" Bobby questioned, sounding a little taken aback as he let him pull away.

"Yeah," said Sam, face flushing, suddenly self-conscious. "Sorry. I just –" He just felt lost and scared and confused beyond belief. He didn't say that, though. Instead he shrugged awkwardly, but Bobby seemed to get the message.

"Yeah, 'spect you would," he agreed. "Quite a mess you two've gotten yourself into this time. Your brother said you were getting changed," he added, raising his eyebrows at Sam's pajamas.

"Nothing fits," said Sam, which he guessed was true enough, judging by the size of the man in the picture.

"'Course it don't. C'mon, Dean's stuff is a bit smaller. We'll figure somethin' out."

Bobby clapped a hand on his shoulder and steered him out of the bedroom. The weight of it, the scratch of Bobby's clothes, even his scent of motor oil and gunpowder were familiar in a way the older Dean and the older Sam's room hadn't been, and Sam let them comfort him. Bobby was here. Dean was here.

They'd figure something out.

.

It was Sam who broke the awkward silence, peering over Dad's shoulder (really really easily; how did such a scrawny kid grow into such a giant?) and giving a not-exactly-polite cough.

"Y'know, the research might go faster if you were actually researching time travel and not what sort of supernatural creature I could be."

"There it is," Dad said definitively, closing his book. "You were making me suspicious," he explained in response to Sam's questioning look. "Too damn obedient. Now that your attitude's showing through, I can put my mind to rest."

Dean flinched, bracing himself for the sharp comeback and the subsequent explosion, but it never came.

"Guess I've mellowed in my old age," said Sam. His voice was light – it was his smile which cracked halfway through.

God fucking dammit, Dean did not like this _at all._ However, both Dad and Sam himself seemed to want to focus on the time travel issue. Which, okay, was kind of a big deal. And it wasn't as though Dean had a lot of say in the matter – it was beginning to hit him that he was now the youngest person in the room, which was another addition to the growing list of things he was not happy about.

"This library's kind of limited," Sam commented, looking through the books which were scattered across the table. "Nineteen ninety-seven," he muttered, and shook his head. "Bobby's probably our best bet."

"Bobby Singer? Why d'you say that?" Dad asked sharply.

"Bobby knows spells. These are mostly about supernatural creatures, which almost always need direct contact to do anything to you. Neither, uh . . . versions of me have been on a hunt recently. Also, I'd probably have noticed if I got bitten by a time wolf or something." Sam's voice started out carefully reasonable, but acquired a wry note by the last sentence. Dean couldn't help but be a bit relieved at that. Dad hadn't been the only one disconcerted by this older Sam's meekness.

Dad's response was almost as off-putting.

"Alright," he agreed with a nod. "I'll give him a call."

He stepped over to the phone, and Dean managed to close his mouth.

"Mind if I talk to Sam for a sec?" he asked Dad, as casually as he could manage.

"Fine, but don't be long," Dad replied, receiver already to his ear.

"Yessir," Dean agreed, and then, in an entirely different tone. "_Sam._ Outside. Now."

He felt grim satisfaction when Sam, over six feet tall and way older than him, jumped and followed him out with the same guilty look as always. However, it was not nearly enough to drown out the storm of anger and fear and worry which had taken up residence in Dean's chest.

"What the _fuck_," he growled as soon as the door closed behind them.

"I don't know," said Sam with a shrug and a grimace.

"No, seriously, what the fuck," Dean repeated. "And I don't mean about the Back to the Future shit," he added sharply when Sam opened his mouth. "What the fuck happened to you and where the fuck was I?"

Sam closed his mouth, and sighed.

"It wasn't your fault," he said, eyes earnest and pained. "It was my choices, my issues, okay?"

"No, it's not fucking okay," Dean snapped back. Sam's safety was his responsibility, always had been and always would be, and he wanted to kick his older self's ass for so obviously dropping the ball. "What. Happened?"

Because Sammy didn't break easy. He was an emo little bitch, but he was tough as nails when he wanted to be. He had barely made a sound when Dad stitched him up – even more impressive, he had stood his ground and deflected most of Dad's anger from Dean, even though Dean had deserved it for letting Sam fall like that. Anything that could hurt Sammy like this – batter him into this haunted, weary half-stranger –

Sam's lips twisted into a pale imitation of a smile.

"You really don't want to know."

.

It wasn't that Sam hadn't noticed the rather conspicuous absence in the cabin. Bobby was always there when they needed him, but he was never the first one Dean called. There was only one bedroom and Dean was clearly sleeping on the couch. So yeah. Sam had noticed that, for one reason or another, Dad wasn't around.

He looked at the new grey in Bobby's hair, the new lines on Dean's face, and didn't ask.

Yet.


	3. The Children We Raised

"_Sounds like a spell, and a pretty powerful one at that," _Singer was saying on the other end of the phone. _"You got any idea who cast it?"_

"No," said John shortly. Given the nature of what he was beginning to uncover about Sam, any number of people and things could be interested in him, but he had no way of narrowing it down and no desire to let Singer in on his knowledge.

"_I'll look into it, but probably trackin' them down is your best bet. Somethin' this big, shouldn't be too hard. Simple origin spell oughta do it."_

"What do I need?"

"_Nothin'. I can do it from right here. Still got Sam's hair all over a brush upstairs from the last time the boys were here."_

There was a pause and the sound of movement. John made a sound of grudging gratitude which he wasn't sure could be heard over the phone. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate Singer's help. He was aware of his own limitations when it came to research, and it had been real useful to have a free, safe place to drop the boys if they happened to pass through Illinois when they were younger, but the man had a tendency to overstep his bounds.

They were John's boys. Not his.

"_How're they holdin' up?"_ Singer asked over the clink and rustle of his activity.

John glanced out the window to where his sons were talking. Dean looked angry and frightened, a big brother faced with something he couldn't fix. Sam looked tired and pained, an old man in a young man's skin.

"They're fine. This gonna take long?"

"_Nope. Already done. You got any paper?"_

John found some, and Singer reeled off a string of coordinates. A few miles to the west, probably just about the edge of town. John gave another grunt of gratitude and moved to hang up.

"_John."_

"What, Singer?" John replied, not bothering to keep his irritation out of his tone.

"_Just remember that the Sam you're dealing with now ain't a kid. By my calculations he's been huntin' just as long as you have. He may even know more'n you do."_

John hung up without a word.

"Dean, Sam," he barked as he stepped outside. Dean jumped to attention. Sam just jumped, visibly restraining himself from skittering backwards, though quickly recovered. Maybe he had been hunting for just as long John, but he looked more like the burned-out shells of men who had been doing the job for twice that. "Got a fix on where the spell came from," was all John said aloud.

"Nearby?" Sam questioned.

"Yeah. Leave now we'll be there in ten minutes."

"Okay," said Sam with a nod. He made a compulsive movement as if to reach for a gun at the small of his back, made a face, and tugged awkwardly on his ill-fitting clothes instead. "I'll need to borrow a weapon, I guess."

"You okay to be hunting?" John asked, examining him. He was steady on his feet, eyes clear, face controlled. Jumpy as hell, but being on high alert wasn't exactly detrimental when it came to hunting, as long as his trigger finger wasn't too twitchy.

"Yes sir."

"Alright," John agreed with an approving nod. Dean made a small noise as if to protest, but a stern look silenced him. A threat to Sam's safety was the only thing that can make Dean step out of line, but John knew what he was doing, and Sam knew his limitations. "Let's head out."

Dean didn't say a word as they gathered their weapons – guns, knives, holy water, salt – but something unhappy flickered over his face as he watched Sam check and load the borrowed handgun with automatic efficiency. John didn't know what there was to be unhappy about. This Sam was twenty-nine, he ought to be comfortable with a gun. It was only because of his spiteful obstinacy that he wasn't at fourteen.

Five minutes later they were on the road, Sam riding shotgun (Dean had moved for the front out of habit, but taken a look at Sam's long limbs and slid into the back with a grumble). The silence was heavy, and John was grateful when their destination, a long drive with a mostly-hidden house at the end, came into sight. John drove past until his found a place to park the car, an alcove with low-hanging trees which would shield the Impala from view.

"So what's the plan?" Dean asked when they had all climbed out.

"We circle around, through the trees," John said. "Approach from the west, see if there's anyone home. If there's not, we take a look."

"And if there is?" Sam asked.

"Then we'll see."

Dean nodded in agreement, and after a moment of hesitation, Sam did the same.

"It's probably a witch, isn't it?" Dean commented, attempting to sound casual but not quite masking the apprehension in his voice.

"Probably," John agreed. "Lots worse things it could be."

"Yes sir," Dean agreed, though John could tell his heart wasn't in it. The kid could put down a werewolf and dig up a corpse and stitch up a wound without even flinching, but he still got squeamish about the oddest things. It was a weakness, John supposed, but not one he could bring himself to be all that upset about as his boys fell into step beside him. Dean's nose was still wrinkled in disgust, his steps almost-but-not-quite silent as he struggled to imitate his father's movements with adolescent limbs.

Sam moved like a predator, not a trace of awkwardness in his height and not a noise rising from his feet.

The drive was empty and the windows were dark. There was no one home. John picked the lock in less than a minute and they stepped into the disconcertingly normal house.

At least, it was normal until they came to the living room.

Sam gave a sharp intake of breath. The furniture had been shoved to the side, the wall covered with maps and documents – and pictures. Pictures of children, all about Sam's age. One of them _exactly_ Sam's age, in fact, and Dean let out a curse as he surged forward to rip the photo of his little brother – his little brother from the correct year, fourteen and smiling – from the wall.

"It's not a witch," Sam stated. There was a single low table beneath the perverse collage, littered with what looked like the remnants of a ritual. Sam dipped a finger in the stone bowl. It came up dripping with red, and his face twisted when he held it up to his nose. "Demon."

"How d'you –? Dean began, but John cut him off.

"Dean, go stand watch. _Now_," he added in a growl when Dean hesitated.

"Yessir." Dean departed, but not without a dark glance over his shoulder.

Sam was avoiding his eyes – or maybe he had just forgotten he wasn't alone as he examined the photographs, lips moving noiselessly around each name and fingers hovering over the young faces. He found a particular photograph and stopped, making a sound as though he's been punched in the gut.

"You know him?" John questioned.

Sam let his hand drop.

"I killed him."

"What was he?"

Sam let out his breath in something which wasn't quite a sigh and turned, meeting John's eyes. John's own words echoed back to him. _He ain't the Sam you know._

"Human." Sam's lips twisted into a broken smile. "Like me."

.

After making his calls (which garnered next to nothing, as expected), Bobby stepped back into the cabin to find Dean, alone, attempting to twist into some position which looked both extremely uncomfortable and physically impossible.

"You _tryin_' to hurt yourself?" Bobby demanded, pushing the younger man back on the couch.

"Sammy's not answering me," Dean responded shortly. "Sam!" he barked over the back of the couch, obviously not for the first time. "He said he was going to look for a toothbrush – Sammy!"

"Alright, alright, calm down," Bobby said firmly, pushing him down again. Despite his leg, Dean had been more protective than ever the past week, not without reason. But a healthy, probably freaked out fourteen-year-old not responding to a voice he barely recognized was considerably less alarming than his older, cracked-in-the-head counterpart not answering his brother's urgent call. "He's probably just figurin' out how to use the laptop or somethin'. I'll go check on him."

Dean finally relaxed back into his pillow, the brief struggle more than enough for to exhaust his drug-heavy body. He muttered under his breath about pain-in-the-ass little brothers as Bobby stepped around the couch and toward the bedroom.

"Sam?" he called for the second time that day, tapping on the door. A faint hiccupping sound was the only response, and he pushed open the door, his stomach sinking. Sam was sitting against the wall on the far side of the room, knees drawn up to his chest, eyes shut and streaming, clutching something in his right hand. _Balls. _

"Bobby?" Dean called. "What's going on?"

"Nothin' you need to go panickin' about," Bobby answered. "And if you can't keep your stupid ass put I'll tie you down." He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, cutting off Dean's half-hearted grumbles.

Sam opened his eyes and stared up at him, eyes deep and sad and strangely steady beneath the sheen of tears. As much as Dean (and Bobby himself, sometimes) still viewed him as a kid, Sam had always been an old soul. It kind of gave Bobby the jitters.

"Dad's dead, isn't he," Sam said, only half a question, voice barely wavering.

"Yeah," Bobby answered, sitting down on the bed and feeling his joints creak. No use lying. Sam had always been too clever for anyone's good. "Died a while ago now."

Sam nodded, his gaze dropping. There was a long pause, and when he spoke again his voice wasn't nearly as calm.

"Did I –" He stopped, licked his lips, swallowed hard. "Was it my fault?"

Of all the follow-ups Bobby might have expected, that wasn't one of them.

"'Course it wasn't," he responded, recovering quickly. "It was his own damn fault, just like it was always gonna be." He didn't like to speak ill of John around his sons, out of self-preservation as much as anything else, but he wasn't going to sugar-coat things, either. John had been obsessive, reckless at best and damn near suicidal at worst. It was a miracle he had survived as long as he had.

Sam didn't answer, his throat working again as he clenched his fist even harder about whatever he was holding. He looked very small in his brother's clothes, young and fragile. The look wasn't as unfamiliar as it should have been after all these years. For someone so strong, Sam was awful breakable.

"What d'ya got there, son?"

Silently, Sam opened his hand.

Bobby frowned at the small gold object. Its horns had dug into Sam's palm, leaving angry purple marks. He knew what it was, of course – he'd been the one to give it to the kid, and he remembered the circumstances which surrounded that Christmas well enough, though he had mostly pieced it together afterwards. John had broken one too many promises and Sam had given up on giving peace offerings when he was the one being wronged, instead handing the gift, and his trust, to Dean.

Dean hadn't worn it in a while. Bobby had figured Cas still had it, wondered vaguely if the delusional angel took any message from the fact that it wasn't heating up in his pocket. Yet here it was in Sam's hand, and apparently it meant even more to him than Bobby knew.

"It was in my bag," Sam stated, still not looking at him, voice slightly muffled by his arm. "Clothes and weapons and . . . this. Why –" He jerked his head up, eyes earnest and searching, tears spilling over once more. "Why would he take it off? Dean never – even in the _shower_ – he dropped on a hunt and he _went back for it_, Dad nearly exploded – why –"

Bobby silenced him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Maybe you oughta ask him."

.

"The demon's name is Azazel." Sam worked as he talked, drawing an unfamiliar symbol on the hardwood floor beneath the front rug. A Devil's Trap, he called it. "He's not building an army. Well, he is, but that's not what the kids are for. He's looking for a leader. The new King of Hell." He said the words as if they left a bad taste in his mouth.

"There can only be one king," John stated. There were dozens of children on the wall, boys and girls of all races.

"Yeah," Sam agreed grimly, rocking back on his heels to survey his work. "They're dead, in my time. As far as I know, anyway; I only met a few of them. It's a competition. Last one standing wins. And before you shoot me or anything, I'm not the King of Hell and I never have been."

"Didn't think you were," said John evenly, but it was at least half a lie and they both knew it. He didn't want to think that either of his boys could turn into something like that, but Sam had always been stubborn and self-righteous and rebellious, and the yellow-eyed demon had done God-knew-what to him before he could even talk, and here he was sniffing out demons and talking about killing humans . . . "Why these kids?"

Sam glanced up at him sharply.

"You don't know? About the blood?"

"Know the demon has plans for you," said John, figuring it was about time they had an honest exchange of information, especially considering it seemed like he'd come off better in this case. "Know it did something to you, and to a lot of other kids. Don't know anything specific, yet."

Sam nodded unhappily, laying the rug back in place and straightening up. Now he was definitely avoiding John's eyes, hands stuffed in his pockets and shoulders hunched.

"It's, uh . . . demon blood. Azazel's blood. He fed it to us when we were babies. Infected us. It sort of . . . gets into you, I guess. Like a disease or – or a drug. Except with really jacked-up side effects. Weird powers, and stuff."

"Like being able to smell demons," John deduced. He tried to keep his voice neutral (or at least tried to try), but Sam winced anyway.

"Yeah." His eyes cut to the side, as if looking at something John couldn't see, and hardened. He straightened suddenly, turning to meet John's gaze – to pin him, in fact, with startling intensity. "You need to stop hunting."

"You wanna run that past me again?" John asked, using the tone he knew would make either of his sons cower back no matter what they were arguing about. This Sam didn't even flinch.

"There's a hunter named Daniel Elkins. He's in Manning, Colorado. He has the Colt – it's real," he added when John opened his mouth to protest. "It kills demons. You need to find it, find Azazel, and kill him. Get help from Bobby and – and Ellen and anyone else you can think of, just _kill him._ And then get out. Stop hunting. Settle down."

"Yellow-Eyes ain't the only demon out there," John said, keeping his voice as even as he could manage while his mind raced. The Colt. A gun that could kill anything. If Sam was right about where to find it – John wasn't even sure he _could_ stop hunting now, even when he finally caught up with the thing which had killed Mary, but with that sort of weapon on his side – Yellow-Eyes was only the beginning.

"You're not getting it," Sam snapped, frustration coloring his tone. "If you keep hunting, Dean will keep hunting, and if Dean keeps hunting, _I'll_ get pulled back into it somehow. And trust me, you don't want any of that."

"You mean _you_ don't want any of that," John corrected coldly, gut roiling with a sick mixture of anger and disgust. He'd known Sam tended to be selfish, especially when it came to his rebellion, but this was too much. To twist _time_ to his whim, rewrite the past just to avoid going into the family business –

"_No!_" Sam snarled, his hand hitting the ritual table with a _bang_. He drew in a breath, forcing his temper back down, though his eyes still flashed as he spoke through clenched teeth. "You want to know what the future looks like if you keep going this way? You're _dead._ Dean's been the Hell and back, literally. I started the apocalypse."

"You did _what_?"

"It's a _long_ story," Sam said. "And you know what it's written in? Blood. Our blood. Yours, and mine, and Dean's. Our friends'. Theirs." He pointed to the wall of children, nearly shaking with anger. "If you don't get us all out of this psychotic, masochistic, suicidal drug trip of a life, it will all happen. You'll die. Dean will go to Hell. I'll destroy everything without even meaning to. I –" Abruptly, he deflated, tension draining from his stance. His gaze dropped, and he seemed to physically shrink.

He looked like a beaten dog, John thought, and immediately hated the comparison.

"I didn't mean to," Sam said softly, almost to himself. He looked up again, eyes catching John's, damp and earnest. "Don't you see? You think you can control it, this life, but you can't. Your intentions don't matter. Everything just gets twisted around."

John thought of Dean snapping to attention and downing beers like water, Sam sitting still as a statue while he drew a needle through his skin and staring him down with resentment which was slowly turning to hatred. (He had only meant it to be a few months, a couple years at most. He had only meant –)

A birdcall rang out from just outside the window, out of season and out of place.

Both hunters were instantly alert, slipping silently into position, holy water in hand. The _click_ of the door opening was followed by unhurried footsteps, and a moment later the demon stepped into the room – and into the trap.

"You –!" it exclaimed, eyes widening at the sight of John.

"Us," Sam agreed, and its eyes went even wider, head whipping around. It tried to take a step back and hit an invisible barrier. Some of John's tension dissipated, and Sam smiled grimly. "Devil's trap," he explained. "You're not going anywhere."

Just to be safe, the bound the demon to a chair – or rather, Sam did, with practiced efficiency, while John stood by with holy water at the ready.

"Now," said John as Sam stepped back. "Let's talk."

The demon sneered at him, the expression wrong on the round, friendly face of the poor bastard it was wearing.

"What, so you can feel smug when you exorcise me anyway? I don't think so, Pops."

Unfazed, John moved to administer the first splash of holy water, but Sam stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Dad, you want to get some fresh air? I've got this."

_Like hell you do_ was on the tip of John's tongue, but there was a look in Sam's eyes, a paradoxical combination of steel and pleading, which made him fall silent.

"Sure thing," he replied instead, tucking the flask away. "Holler if you want a hand." _I'm not going far_ was the unspoken message to both Sam and the demon, and a tight nod and a roll of jet black eyes told him that it was received. He retreated into the hall and down a ways, making sure his heavy footsteps echoed loudly enough for Sam to hear, then doubled back silently.

He wasn't leaving this stranger alone with his secrets, and he sure as hell wasn't leaving his boy alone with a demon.

Sam had pulled up a second chair, folding himself into it and hunkering down until he was eye-to-eye with the demon. When he spoke it was in a gentle, even tone, as if he was speaking to a traumatized victim and not hell spawn.

"You know, this whole interrogation business, it's not really my thing," he said, almost apologetically. "It's really more Dean's area. But he's not here, and I can do it, if I have to." His voice shifted, still superficially friendly but now carrying a razor edge. "You really don't want me to have to."

Predictably, the demon merely sneered again in reply.

"You think you can scare me, kid? You ever been to Hell?"

Sam let out his breath through is nose in something which might have been a laugh.

"The question is, do you think you can scare _me_? Ever been in the Cage?"

John Winchester had never seen a demon look afraid. Too be perfectly honest, he hadn't seen that many demons, period, but the ones he had met had always been varying degrees of smug and angry. Now, however, the demon paled with something which looked an awful lot like terror.

"It's a myth," the demon protested. "There is no Cage."

Sam laughed, flat and mirthless, and John's stomach turned.

"Lucifer would beg to differ."

_Lucifer._ John's blood ran cold. Lucifer was a legend; everyone said so. He was a symbol the more idealistic demons believed in, the way some humans believed in God. He couldn't possibly have anything to do with this older Sam's odd fits and twitches, the way his eyes sometimes flickered towards nothing . . . as they did now, judging by the demon's next words.

"What are you looking at?!" the demon demanded, real panic creeping into its voice and over its stolen face.

"I think you know."

"Lucifer. Isn't. _Real,_" the demon insisted.

Sam leaned forward, suddenly looming as he used his entire bulk to his advantage. John couldn't see his face, but it must have been damned terrifying, because the demon jerked against its bonds in a desperate attempt to get away.

"Lucifer," Sam said, low and deliberate, "is whispering suggestions in my ear. Now you either start answering my questions, or I start taking them."

The demon _whimpered_.

"Alright, alright! I'll tell you anything you want to know!"

Sam sat back.

"Good." He glanced towards the door. "Dad." It wasn't a question. He should have known his boy wouldn't fall for such an amateur trick, John reflected as he stepped back into the room. His boy who could see Lucifer and frighten demons and looked at him with old, old eyes.

Sam's lips twisted into the shadow of a smile, as if in some attempt at reassurance. It only made John's heart clench further, so he dragged his eyes back to the demon, letting cold fury numb the pain in his chest.

"You cast the time travel spell."

"Yes."

"How do you reverse it?"

"I – I don't know. It was only supposed to open a window, let me see, but –"

"But you decided to spice up a white magic spell with a bit of blood and darkness and got more than you bargained for," Sam finished for him impatiently. "The original spell, how did that one end?"

"It just – stopped. On its own. Twenty-four hours, I think."

Which meant this Sam might snap back to his own time like a rubber band – or he might be stuck this way until they (or more likely, John admitted reluctantly in the privacy of his own head, Singer) could figure a way to fix it. Something to deal with later. In the meantime, John had some questions of his own.

"Why?" he asked. "Why cast the spell, why Sam?"

The demon's gaze darted to Sam.

"Answer the question," Sam ordered, looking resigned.

"Because . . . because he's the favorite. Of Azazel's children." It licked its lips nervously, eyes flicking between the two of them. "It's time to choose allegiances. Something's coming. Everyone knows it. Hell is splitting into factions as we speak."

"You want to know what horse to bet on," Sam stated. There was a note in his voice which John couldn't interpret. His face, when John looked, was inscrutable.

"Well . . . yeah," said the demon with the parody of a smile. "Can't blame me, can you? I mean, Azazel, Lilith, if you're going to side with one of them against the other you kinda wanna know you're on the winning—gk!"

Sam had surged to his feet and wrapped a hand around the demon's throat, cutting off its speech and a good portion of its air.

"You listen to me," he said, his voice deadly soft and perfectly controlled. "It doesn't matter what side you're on. _Nothing_ will prepare you for the shitstorm that's coming. _Nothing_ will keep you safe. But if you come anywhere near me and my family ever again, you will be dead before you even think about touching us. Not exorcised, not onto the next meatsuit. _Dead_. Do you understand?"

The demon nodded frantically, as best it could with Sam's hand still closed on its neck. Sam released his grip and stepped back.

"_Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus_ . . ."

The exorcism flowed from Sam's mouth more smoothly than anything else he had said, easy and automatic, as if he had recited it a thousand times. But demons were rare – at least, they were rare _now_.

"_Something's coming." _

Black smoke poured from the possessed man's mouth, and the room fell silent. The body slumped, lifeless.

"He's dead," said Sam flatly. "I'm going to check on Dean."

He stalked out and John followed, sparing one last glance for the wall of photos behind him. Children. Sam's age. Smiling. Doomed.

"_You need to stop hunting."_

Sam's voice broke through his thoughts as he stepped outside.

"Where is he? Dean! Oh, dammit . . ."

Sam rounded the house in three long strides, John at his heels. Sam came to a halt, swearing under his breath, and John shared the sentiment. Dean had obeyed orders. He was keeping watch, right outside the window. The _open_ window.

Or rather, he had been keeping watch. Now he was sitting in the dirt, face white, hand clamped over his mouth, crying silently.

"Dean," Sam said softly, sinking into a crouch in front of his brother. John, as he so often did when he watched his boys interact, felt that he was intruding.

Dean shook his head, pulling his hand away and setting his jaw.

"The Cage," he began, and Sam flinched. Dean winced in sympathy, but kept going. "It's where they keep Lucifer. How'd you – why –"

"I had to," said Sam, matter-of-fact, tinged with sadness, maybe, but no bitterness. "I freed Lucifer, so I had to put him back. Drag him down with me. It was the only way."

He had jumped in, in other words. Willingly. John felt cold, and Dean went a sickly shade of green.

"You – but – how long? How long were you –?"

"Dean, don't – don't do this to yourself," Sam pleaded.

"How long?" Dean insisted.

"I don't know," said Sam with a shake of his head. "Time's different down there."

"Estimate," Dean snapped, using anger to cover for fear and pain and worry. It was a technique that John knew well. "We talking days? Weeks? Months?"

Sam's gaze dropped, and he muttered something unintelligible.

"Didn't quite catch that, Sammy."

"More like . . . centuries."

John could barely hear Dean's retching over the sound of his own thoughts screeching to a horrified halt. Sam had – his boy – _centuries_ –

Dean was pushing himself back up, wiping his mouth with a shaking hand.

"_Sammy_," he whispered brokenly, staring at his too-big little brother, who stared back with sorrowful (broken, Sam was _broken_) eyes. "Oh god, Sam –"

And suddenly it wasn't his too-big little brother anymore. Suddenly it was just his _little_ brother, fourteen and teary and making a sound of confusion and alarm as Dean pulled him into a bone-crushing hug and began to sob.

"_. . . you don't want any of that." _

No, John realized, watching his boys cling to each other in fear and pain. He really, really didn't.

.

Bobby steered Sam into the main room, pushing him along while he dragged his feet.

"Bobby, what the hell –" Dean began angrily, but cut himself off when he twisted enough to get a look at Sam. "Sammy, what's wrong?"

"Go on, son," Bobby prompted, giving Sam a more-or-less gentle shove in his brother's direction. With visible reluctance, Sam rounded the couch. Dean's eyes were on him the whole way, forehead creased with worry and bewilderment.

"Sam, what –?"

Sam let the amulet drop down from his fist, swinging from the cord which he kept clutched with in his hand. Dean seemed to physically stop breathing.

"It was in my bag," Sam said softly, but with an undeniable note of accusation. "Older me's bag. At the bottom, like I didn't want anyone to find it."

"Sammy . . ." Dean whispered brokenly, and Bobby was ninety-nine percent sure he wasn't talking to the teenager.

Said teenager reached out and set the amulet on the table between them, carefully, watching his brother's reaction. Dean made a compulsive movement as if to pick it up, but pulled back. He looked as though his world had just cracked in half (again). Bobby wondered what the hell that damned necklace meant to the two of them, because he was clearly missing something.

"What happened?" Sam asked, voice trembling.

"Dammit, Sam," Dean muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face, the words still only half directed at the person in front of him. "I was a jackass, that's what happened," he said, dragging himself back to composure with visible effort. "I was pissed off, so I did something which I figured would piss you off. Guess it didn't quite work that way."

Sam's eyebrows drew together in confusion and betrayal.

"But _why_?" he asked desperately. For all his brains, the boy obviously couldn't fathom the idea of his brother hurting him deliberately. "What did I –"

"You didn't _do_ anything, Sammy," Dean said, sounding as if the words were being dragged over broken glass. "I mean, yeah, you messed up, we both did, but – you _tried_, dammit, you tried so damn hard, even when the whole world was set against you. And you _won_, man. You beat it. And –"

Dean paused, throat working. Bobby wondered just how much of this he would be saying if he were completely sober.

"—you're still my little brother, no matter what you do. Nothing can change that. You hear me?"

Sam nodded, biting his lip. He opened his mouth to reply, and then –

"Jesus!"

– he was six-foot-four again, catching himself on the coffee table as he pitched forward.

"Sam!" Dean exclaimed, jerking upright as best he could while still sitting down.

"Dean," Sam replied, steadying himself and straightening up. "What – that was real, right?" His eyes landed on the amulet, still sitting between them, and the color drained from his face. He snatched it up and stuffed it into the pocket of his ill-fitting jacket – John's, Bobby realized, his eyebrows creeping up his forehead. So it had been _that_ kind of spell.

"Yeah, son, it was real," Bobby answered. "You alright?"

"Yeah," said Sam unconvincingly. His eyes flickered towards something which wasn't there. "Yeah. I should, um, get changed." He started towards his bedroom.

"Sammy."

Sam turned back, pained and hopeful. Bobby absolutely did not hold his breath, because he wasn't that sort of sap, but damn if he didn't want to see the kid get a break after what had to be a solid six hours of old scars getting torn open.

Dean stared at Sam, a thousand emotions warring on his face.

"You sure you're alright?" he asked at last.

Sam's lips twisted into a smile beneath wounded eyes.

"Yeah. I'm fine, Dean."


	4. Epilogue

**Notes: Last installment! Thank you to everyone who read, and doubly so to everyone who reviewed/favorite. Your feedback and encouragement mean a lot to me. I hope you've enjoyed this story as much as I have, and if you have, I hope you'll let me know!**

**.**

Bobby rolled up to the cabin a couple days after the time travel incident to the sight of Sam sitting on the porch. His expression was hard to read in the dying light, but his shoulders were hunched broodingly and he didn't glance up as Bobby approached.

"You alright there, Sam?"

Sam did look up then, his clear eyes and tight smile answering one set of questions and raising a whole host of others. He was holding the amulet, Bobby noticed with a surge of frustrated exasperation.

Sam and Dean would let the world burn for each other – hell, they'd light the match themselves – but he'd take it as another portent of the apocalypse if he ever saw them suck it up and say what needed to be said. Dean wasn't going to make that speech again, never mind that the Sam he'd given it to hadn't been the one who needed to hear it. And Sam was going to keep that amulet buried in his bag, never mind that it would just eat away at both of them all the same.

"I thought –" Sam began, and then stopped. Bobby waited, watching him finger the amulet like a rosary.

He wondered if the boy still prayed.

"I thought maybe I could change something," said Sam at last, his gaze dropping to the pendent. "I thought maybe if I told Dad about the Colt and Azazel and everything – maybe he could stop it. I had to try, anyway." He shook his head, his mouth twisting bitterly and his hand closing into a fist around the amulet. "I guess I failed. Everything's exactly the same."

"I don't know about that," said Bobby carefully, and Sam's head jerked up.

"What do you mean?" he asked. There was a sheen in his eyes which might have been hope, or desperation. Then again, it might have just been the moonlight.

"D'you remember gettin' zapped to the future when you were fourteen?" Bobby asked. Sam's forehead creased with confusion.

". . . no," he said at last, a little uncertainly.

"An' Dean don't remember meeting this you when he was eighteen," Bobby informed him. "So sounds to me like you changed _something_, even if it ain't exactly what you were aimin' for."

Sam stared at him, realization creeping over his face, and Bobby nodded in satisfaction as he stepped into the house. It wouldn't have been enough for Dean, or for Bobby himself, but Sam always had been a deep little bastard. He would take comfort in thinking that somewhere, somewhen, he had managed to change the crash-course of their lives.

Bobby just hoped he hadn't been lying to the boy.

.

_Somewhere, somewhen: _

John lowered the smoking Colt. He felt strangely numb.

A small, choked sound made him look up. His boys were standing together at his shoulder. Dean's gaze was fixed on Yellow-Eyes' corpse Sam, sixteen now and almost taller than John, stared at him with wide, haunted eyes.

"Is it true?" he managed, his voice wavering. "What he said about my – my blood? Am I even –?"

John silenced him with a hand on his face, more gentle a touch than he had allowed himself in a long time.

"Demons lie. You're human, Sam. My son, and Mary's. Dean's brother. A Winchester through and through."

Dean was listing a little, hazy from more than just the sluggishly bleeding cut on his forehead. He leaned on John on the way back to the Impala, and when he finally spoke it was laced with something like wonder, almost a question.

"It's over."

John stopped in front of the Impala and pulled his boys close. Sam was trembling minutely. Dean was barely standing. But they were alive. They were whole.

They were damn well going to stay that way.

"Yeah," John agreed, a vow and a reassurance. "It's over."

-Fin-


End file.
